University law schools have been beset with a sense of schizophrenia ever since first established in the 19th century. They were unsure as to whether they were free to teach and research in the same way as the humanities or whether they were constrained by the presuppositions of legal practice. More recently, this tension has been overshadowed by…

With globalising transnational corporate law firms, high rates of depression among law students and lawyers, and a changing role for lawyers in the world of dispute resolution, academics and professional bodies have been doing some soul searching. They are pondering just what is required in a law degree to train future lawyers adequately. This…

The Chief Justice of Australia, on the occasion of inauguration of the Faculty of Law at the University of Wollongong (Australia), examines the purposes and content of academic legal education, notes the increasing numbers of students wanting to study law, and recommends more interdisciplinary studies for students of law. (DB)

The conflicting values in legal education between training for the profession and pursuing the academic discipline of law are examined, and tendencies toward isolationism of legal education are decried. Greater organizational and curricular integration between law and the social sciences at La Trobe University (Australia) is noted as a positive…

A 1986 survey of first-year law students in four Australian universities provides a profile of student characteristics, including sex, age, course type (law only or combined), full- or part-time enrollment status, educational background, income, parental education and income, marital status, residence, and personal contact with others in the legal…